Silverstone Classic preview: Jaguar XJ220 celebration parade

It’s now 25 years since Jaguar’s remarkable XJ220 burst on to the world’s unsuspecting highways – a milestone that will be celebrated with a record-breaking track parade at this summer’s Silverstone Classic.

When customer sales started in June 1992 the dramatically-styled, mid-engined, two-seater supercar – priced at a not inconsiderable £470,000 – was not only Jaguar’s fastest ever production car (an accolade it still holds) but also the fastest production car on earth, officially clocked at a then peerless 212.3mph. It was an outstanding achievement for what had started out as little more than a labour of love conceived on the sly by a dozen passionate Jaguar engineers working after hours in their spare time.

Nicknamed the “Saturday Club”, their numbers included the XJ220’s designer Keith Helfet, a young South African petrolhead who had arrived in the styling department at Jaguar via the Royal College of Art in London. He had been one of two in-house designers asked to submit secret proposals to Jim Randle, the company’s then director of engineering.

The dramatic XJ220 was styled by Keith Helfet, as part of a team of Jaguar employees who worked on the project in their own time

Randle, without the blessing of his superiors, was keen create a Group B road racer to take on Ferrari’s 288 GTO and Porsche’s 959.

“Group B was very seductive,” explains Helfet, whose design was finally selected largely as it looked more like a classic Jaguar than a faceless racing prototype. “Jim’s vision was that it would be brilliant if Jaguar, Porsche and Ferrari were competing against each other as they had done in the old days when events like Le Mans were reserved for racing versions of sports cars that customers actually could buy.

“To that end, Jim set up a small team of 12 volunteers from within Jaguar to meet on Saturday mornings, making it clear that we’d be sacked if we were caught working on the project in normal hours. You have to remember that back then the company was still in very much survival mode and couldn’t afford to lose resource.”

Christened XJ220, partly as a nod to Jaguar’s much-loved XK120 from the Fifties and partly with an estimated top speed in mind, the concept car was unveiled to incredible reviews at the Birmingham NEC motor show in October 1988.

Helfet's design was chosen because it looked more like a Jaguar than a faceless racing prototype - even though the aim was for the XJ220 to take on Ferrari and Porsche in Group B races

“The reaction was absolutely astonishing,” recalls Helfet. “It was utterly unbelievable and took everyone by surprise. The following day the 220 was on the front cover of every national newspaper except the Financil Times, where it was on page three. Later in the week, there were six-mile queues to get into the NEC. We were opposite the Ferrari stand and its new F40 was totally ignored.”

More importantly, perhaps, Jaguar was inundated with blank cheques as more than 1,500 enthusiasts and speculators clamoured to get their hands on of one these gorgeous show-stoppers - a response that forced Jaguar to grant approval for a limited production run of 350 road cars.

A dedicated Jaguar Sport joint venture was set up with the company’s then competition partner, Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), and soon afterwards a shiny new XJ220 factory was opened by HRH The Princess of Wales in Bloxham near Banbury.

So far, so good… but there were dark clouds gathering on the horizon. The world was heading into economic recession and many of those bowled over by the original prototype weren’t quite so excited by the downgraded specification of the eventual production car.

Although originally conceived to feature a V12 engine plus four-wheel-drive, the customer version came with a 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged V6 – albeit developing a sizable 542bhp – delivered to just the rear transaxle.

Many of the those who had been falling over themselves in their attempts to queue-barge at the NEC ended up sueing Jaguar to get their deposits back. In the end, when production ceased in 1994 with fewer than 300 cars built, Jaguar was left with 150 unwanted XJ220s, many of which were eventually sold off for less than half of their list price.

The interior of the road-going car was opulent by the standards of the day

Halfet says: “To everyone’s immense credit, the production car was really quite competent and it held the lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschliefe for more than a decade, but a turbo was never going to have the same visceral impact as a naturally aspirated V12,” blaming the decision to adopt the V6, as well as the economic downturn, for the embarrassing sales of the XJ220.

“[Tom] Walkinshaw was desperate to use his own TWR-developed V6, and he could be quite persuasive! But it was a big mistake which sadly backfired; the V12 would have been the right engine.”

While understandably underwhelmed by the decision to go down the turbo route, Helfet was one of two Saturday Club members to stick with the project throughout and, even today, remains somewhat taken aback by the car’s amazing legacy.

“The impact the 220 had was out of all proportion for what was an oddball project created by a dozen volunteers in their down time,” he says. “It was a best-selling Scalextric model for years; it was Athena’s top-selling car poster and has appeared on the cover of countless supercar books.”

But, despite all that acclaim, the often undervalued Jaguar is only just starting to get the respect and recognition it perhaps deserves. Suggesting it’s now on the cusp of greatness, prices are starting to rise but, even so, they remain a fraction of those commanded by supercars of a similar era and pedigree. While McLaren F1s and Ferrari F40s fetch many millions at auction, it’s still possible to pick up a really good XJ220 for less than the original purchase price.

“It does seem the world is rediscovering the 220,” enthuses Helfet, who will be joining the 25th birthday celebrations at the Silverstone Classic on Saturday July 29. “I believe the special anniversary parade at the Classic will be not only a very memorable occasion but also a significant turning point in the 220’s turbulent history. There’s still so much interest and goodwill in the car.

“Looking back it was the craziest, the most heroic and even the silliest of projects. However, 25 years on, I’m still very proud of it.”